personal chef or catering horror stories

[chezlamere]

great stories

[clifford]

Off premise catering is a nightmare. The old adage of Murphy's Law never rings more true. No matter how exhaustive your walk throughs and planning meeting are, you will always be searching for something and attempting to pull a rabbit out of your hat at the last minute.

One of the hardest things to execute? Coffee. Especially for huge quantities of people, and generally in these old catering mansions with terrible electrical systems. You need a dedicated 20 AMP breaker for each coffee maker, so you will find yourself brewing coffee in virtually every nook and cranny of the place.

And you really need an electrician, because the outlets NEVER work like a client tells you. I used to test sockets with one of those $20 little testers at walk throughs, but even that wasn't a sure thing.

I never left the restaurant without a full case of sterno, an empty Cres-Cor, Extra sheet pans, and three cinder blocks?

Light 10 Sternos and throw them in the Cres Cor and presto, you have an oven. I have actually melted the doors off of these things!

Why the cinder blocks? Arrange them side by side, with a sterno in each, and you have the hillbilly version of a Viking range!

The minutae involved in planning a sit-down dinner for 400 is mind numbing. And no matter how much you plan, and label each equipment box, one server will take the box with the doilies and salt and pepper shakers and inexplicably place them ON THE ROOF, then forget he has done this.

One of my favorite moments was when I was planning a wealthy clients holiday party, and he wanted to have his favorite Vietnamese noodle place do some of the food. So we go and meet the owner to discuss the set-up and his equipment needs, and he starts in on the refrigerators he will need, and the pasta cooker, and the gas fired woks, etc, etc.

I leaned over the table and said to him, "Have you ever been camping?" He looked at me quizzically, as the term "camping" did not quite resonate I proceeded to explain to him that he was going to have to figure out how to feed his delightful noodle dishes to 500 people out of coolers and from ONE electric oven with an 8'table for prep. Oh yeah, and you'll be cooking on the loading dock. "That," I explained to him, "is why you can charge someone $10K for noodles."

On busy weekends, when we had multiple events going on the same day, I would generally throw up from the stress somewhere around 11AM. And I was GREAT at the job, but I just could not take it anymore. Maybe the old deli tray kind of drop off catering is easy, but full service, fine dining catering has got to be a reasonable facsimile of the seventh circle of hell.

Edited January 22, 2004 by clifford (log)

[chezlamere]

I copies that into my "site prep" file, thanks

[chickenlady]

The worst catering experience I've had was a small wedding held at a very exclusive camp in the Adirondacks. All 40 guests had flown in for the week and were staying in the lodge where the evening reception with full dinner was to be held. We arrive mid-day to set up and all the guests are lounging about the room. Of course--they've been using this room as their main gathering room all week, so why not today?

We try to work around them to set up the decorations and lay out the tables, but we'd just get something arranged and they'd decide that they needed to pull one of the tables over to the corner to play cards! This decorating/undecorating went on the entire afternoon until everyone finally went to the ceremony--leaving us about 45 minutes to put everything back together.

But the worst was the kitchen situation. The kitchen itself was fine, but it was, of course, the kitchen where the guests had all their private food stored. Approximately every 15 minutes, someone else would decide they just had to have a sandwich right now, so people would pour in, take up the entire prep area making sandwiches, stand around talking, then leave all their dirty dishes and food laying about. I spent most of the prep time washing their dirties!! I wasn't in charge, so I couldn't say anything.

Oh yeah, the company owner kept disappearing, at one point for several hours, with no indication where he'd gone or when he'd be back. :angry: By the end, I swore I would never cater again. Of course I have, because I really do love it.

[Louisa Chu]

Not so bad - but I used to cater wine and food events for private and corporate clients in LA. I once did the food for a corporate wine tasting for a big wine shop - French wines so I paired with French foods. I made this beautiful Daube de Boeuf - I mean that sauce had some serious soul. But almost all the clients just picked out the vegetables - leaving all that beef and gorgeous sauce behind. Sometimes I really hate LA.

[herbacidal]

Off premise catering is a nightmare. The old adage of Murphy's Law never rings more true. No matter how exhaustive your walk throughs and planning meeting are, you will always be searching for something and attempting to pull a rabbit out of your hat at the last minute.

One of the hardest things to execute? Coffee. Especially for huge quantities of people, and generally in these old catering mansions with terrible electrical systems. You need a dedicated 20 AMP breaker for each coffee maker, so you will find yourself brewing coffee in virtually every nook and cranny of the place.

And you really need an electrician, because the outlets NEVER work like a client tells you. I used to test sockets with one of those $20 little testers at walk throughs, but even that wasn't a sure thing.

I never left the restaurant without a full case of sterno, an empty Cres-Cor, Extra sheet pans, and three cinder blocks?

Light 10 Sternos and throw them in the Cres Cor and presto, you have an oven. I have actually melted the doors off of these things!

Why the cinder blocks? Arrange them side by side, with a sterno in each, and you have the hillbilly version of a Viking range!

The minutae involved in planning a sit-down dinner for 400 is mind numbing. And no matter how much you plan, and label each equipment box, one server will take the box with the doilies and salt and pepper shakers and inexplicably place them ON THE ROOF, then forget he has done this.

One of my favorite moments was when I was planning a wealthy clients holiday party, and he wanted to have his favorite Vietnamese noodle place do some of the food. So we go and meet the owner to discuss the set-up and his equipment needs, and he starts in on the refrigerators he will need, and the pasta cooker, and the gas fired woks, etc, etc.

I leaned over the table and said to him, "Have you ever been camping?" He looked at me quizzically, as the term "camping" did not quite resonate I proceeded to explain to him that he was going to have to figure out how to feed his delightful noodle dishes to 500 people out of coolers and from ONE electric oven with an 8'table for prep. Oh yeah, and you'll be cooking on the loading dock. "That," I explained to him, "is why you can charge someone $10K for noodles."

On busy weekends, when we had multiple events going on the same day, I would generally throw up from the stress somewhere around 11AM. And I was GREAT at the job, but I just could not take it anymore. Maybe the old deli tray kind of drop off catering is easy, but full service, fine dining catering has got to be a reasonable facsimile of the seventh circle of hell.

Ah, memories.

Seems like just yesterday.

I actually preferred off-premise because:

there was more variety in events, and more things for me to do.

Good catering tips. Especially the cinder blocks. But we always had ovens. Either the client's kitchen oven that was used once since they put it in, or rented.

Never had a server take a box like that though.

Cres-cor, is that what's it's called?

Never looked at the brand name.

With sterno in it, it's a hot box.

With ice in it, it's a cold box.

Coffee always sucked if you had someone who didn't know what they were doing. Like me. Why I always hated pantry duty.

Anything is better, even buffet setup.

Actually, in my experience, the convection ovens for hors d'ouvres were more likely to blow fuses than the coffeemakers.

Thanks for the rant. It was fun.

Clifford, you were a party chef and a prep chef?

I was floor staff.

[tigerwoman]

Now I for one love catering - it beats having a retail business where you really cannt predict what people will order from day to day.

But off prem (off premises) catering takes tons of organization and skill - you have to know how to plan, execute, improvise and keep smiling.

And while we hate the kids, pets and grandmas in the kitchen while we are flying at full speed trying to get ready, sometimes its just the nature of the beast.

Worse than the clients without a clue is when the space you are catering in that the client picked out and paid for has a problem and you have to take the heat for it.

We were catering a valentine wedding for about 100 last year at a loft on the west side in the 20's (NYC) the skylights were leaking as unfortunately it was raining. The owners solution was to put vases all over the room which my staff and I kept tripping over. I took a nasty fall, yet the site wasnt taking responsibility to keep it dry. And when it got dark there were no lights to light up the food areas - oh well, fortunately there was a kitchen space of sorts, but then one of the people came early and was hogging the area the bartender needed to set up and was pissed off when we asked them to hurry it up - guess looking beautiful was more important for her than her hosts party being ready on time.

[chromedome]

What's a "donair place"?? That one has me puzzled!

Donairs are a close cousin to gyros and several other similar middle-eastern dishes. They were invented in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia, by the Lebanese owner of a company now called King of Donair.

The bulk of it is a large log of spiced ground beef, set up on a vertical rotisserie and slowly browned. For service, several slices are whittled off and thrown onto the flattop. A pita will be tossed on top of the meat to soften up as the meat browns. Then the meat will be placed in the pita with onions, chopped tomatoes, and - the crucial detail - a sweet/sour milky sauce, which is what distinguishes the donair from similar items.

When done well, they are a superior late-night-when-I'm-drinking food; hence their popularity in hard-partying Halifax. When done poorly, like most fast foods, they can be truly vile.

Badly-handled donairs, between the milk-based sauce and the slow-cooking ground beef, are a wonderful breeding ground for food-borne illness.

[KatieLoeb]

My first catering gig ever I wore uncomfortable shoes. I was crippled for days.

Learned a valuable lesson. Investment in the footwear is key.

[Pan]

What's a "donair place"??  That one has me puzzled!

Donairs are a close cousin to gyros and several other similar middle-eastern dishes. They were invented in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia, by the Lebanese owner of a company now called King of Donair.

Doner Kebab was invented by a Lebanese person in Halifax? How did it spread to Istanbul, then? Or is "donair" not the same as "doner"???

[nessa]

Wow. It sure spread quickly to the turkish population in Germany where they serve up the best dang Doner Kebabs I've ever had. I've mentioned more than once that to have one again would be worth swimming there.

[chromedome]

Doner kebab and its cognates are the origin of the Canadian "donair," no question. It's a variation on the theme, with seasoning and sauce which vary from the originals on the other side of the Atlantic.

Donairs, in this incarnation, are universally available across Canada, while Greek-style gyros and Turkish-style doner kebab are found only in ethnic enclaves. Next time you're in a major Canadian city, hunt down all three and try them. Donair sauce is notably sweeter.

[McDuff]

I was personal cheffing for a high-powered real estate attorney and her family in a very upscale suburb of Boston, complete with the vintage Mercedes in the garage and the original Chagalls on the walls. She had a habit of running on a treadmill to, she told me, John Philips Sousa, then going upstairs and showering and then whatever. But two Mondays in a row she would shower, then come hang around the kitchen wrapped in a towel. What's that line from Goldfinger, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action." On the second Monday she lounged in the towel, flipping through a Victoria's Secrets catalog. That did it for me...maybe in another life, but not now, no way. I got so freaked out my back froze up and I could barely walk and do my fulltime job. I never went back, and endured several snotty phone calls from her and the husband before I was able to convince them, NO.

[Pouncy]

I'm not a professional, but I'm the only one of my circle of friends who can cook. (Not kidding, these people live off of Domino's.) As such, I get called upon to do such things as cook for dinners, wedding receptions of the shoe-string variety, etc.

The best investment I ever made was a Coleman Road Trip grill and a huge Rubbermaid tub. The grill has a griddle insert and runs off of camping canisters (or with an adapter, a normal BBQ size propane tank), and spews out about 15,000 BTU's on each burner, and it has it's own stand as well. The tub holds everything I need, and they both fit in my jeep perfectly.

I do a few things pretty regularly at different get-togethers: Quesadilla bars, Dutch Apple Fritters (Olie Bollen), and fried rice.

I try to never count on people owning things like ladles, spatulas, paper towels, oven mitts, and keep my tub stocked with supplies. Same thing with decent knives. I also keep a selection of teas and hot chocolates in my tub, along with a kettle, because inevitably, drinks get forgotten by the person coordinating the shindig.

Plastic bags are another good idea, to throw the dirty pans in and wash at home - oftentimes when we are at a school or something, the sinks are not deep enough to hold my pans to wash out!

What drives me nuts is when people take the pot off the flames so that they can light their cigarette!!! They inevitably lack the common sense to slide the pot back over...grrr!

Like I said, I'm not professional, but it helps me make gas money, and keeps my friends from poisoning people.

[Katherine]

Like I said, I'm not professional, but it helps me make gas money, and keeps my friends from poisoning people.

If you get paid for it, you're a professional, however poorly paid. Hold your head up and take pride in that status.

[zora]

I've done a little catering, but have made myself so exhausted that I find myself staring into the what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-life-I-am-so-screwed abyss of self-doubt at 5 in the morning in the middle of a litter-strewn backyard. But I love all the planning and cooking... Ah, sweet spreadsheets! Now I do 20-person dinner parties, tops (oh, OK, twist my arm, and my friend's wedding come up), but it doesn't make me money, really.

One super-basic tip for personal chefing or catering: always take an oven thermometer to a walk-through, turn on the oven first thing, and let it heat up while you're checking everything else.

Nightmare clients are vegetarians, or worse, vegans, who keep springing strange rules on you, such as "no white sugar." I did a wedding of tamales (palmed the tamale-making off on bride and co., as a sort of bridal shower party), where I ended up having to do ridiculous permutations (lard/no lard, cheese/no cheese, etc.) to keep all the new finicky people on the guest list happy.

Also had some guests who insisted I gave them food poisoning, even though they were the only two people at a party of 25 to be sick, and they had classic symptoms of giardia, which takes weeks to show up. The hostess got all righteous on my ass, but she was the one who came into the kitchen drunk and started tossing the salad with her (probably filthy) hands, blathering about how she liked to paint with her hands too, and wasn't it just so sensual. Whatev. I sucked it up and offered money back and said I'd yell at my fish guy. She didn't take me up on the money, so I was happy--wouldn't want to work for her again anyway.

Even if it's a casual thing for friends, and friends are helping serve or whatever, it's good to have the 'help' dress in standard catering black-and-white--guests won't chitchat with them so much.

And I agree that the coffee is easy to screw up...it's always the end of the meal, and gets the least attention.

[chow guy]

During my first gig cooking dinner in a very fancy Park Avenue apartment for famous folks and Opera stars the hostess rang her little servant bell and summoned me tableside. She whispered in my ear, "The poulet Estragon is not cooked through". My quick sotto voce reply, "Page262 Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking vol 1. Do not overcook the chicken, it should be pink at the joints". It was more than pink unfortunately and the reason I could quote Julia so lucidly, was that I referred to the recipe countless times while cooking since I was so nervous. (P.S.I worked for the lady for several years after my little debut). Act confident even when you are totally a mess inside.

I was cooking a dinner party for a Park Avenue socialite. When she told me that Andy Warhol was a guest, I warned her that there would not be enogh food since he always traveled with an entourage. She told me not to worry about it. Warhol came with his usual entourage of 25 and I had to hit several local Grestede's Markets to find enough salad, tortellini, cream and cheese to throw together some food for the uninvited hoard. You will often have to think quickly on your feet.

I was doing a dinner for a United Nations delegation that required the baby lamb be brought out on a litter carried by six uniformed countrymen. The lamb slipped off the litter and the aide de camp clapped his hands and said,"Bring out the other lamb" (as if there were another lamb) Like magic the "other" lamb was brought out.

I catered the opening reception at the newly renovated 86th floor observatory at the Empire State Building in 1978. After many, many meetings and logistisizing, the evening of the event we arrived to discover the elevator that went up the final floors was locked and we had to schlep tons of stuff up five or six floors. Plan! Plan! Plan! and then Plan!

Moments before delivering a wedding cake the cleaning lady "moved one of the boxes the cake was in, as though it were cleaning supplies.There was a terrible lack of buttercream on one side of the cake. There was no time to make buttercream so I went to a nearby bakery and after a tearful plea they sold me some. In the back of the van on the way downtown. I repaired the cake and used Waay too many flowers to decorate. Remember there is always a front and back to every cake. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers the cake got raves.

[Jake]

Chow guy, loved your annecdotes! Especially the lamb.

[Cusina]

chow guy, those ARE great stories

I can just picture the collective gasp when the lamb hit the floor and you banging your head against a locked elevator door. hehehe.